Doubtful Sound Trip - Part Three

Once my lunch was gone, so was I. We were just leaving Deep Cove to cruise out to Doubtful Sound, and I knew the scenery would be too amazing to watch it from inside a glass room with people talking all around. I got up and went straight to the upper deck. I spent most of the trip out to the Tasman Sea up there, taking pictures, letting the wind blow in my face, and listening (kind of) to the tour guide telling us about, again, history and scenery. I was mostly alone up there, with the exception of the odd one or two people coming up for a picture, deciding it was too windy and rocky, and then going back down to the comfort of their noisy little glass box.

That's one thing I couldn't understand. I was on this cruise for free, but most of these people had paid upwards of $300 to be there...and they spent it at the bar or sitting inside their little dining room talking to people...seeing some of the scenery...but not experiencing the smell of the sea, the feel of the wind...or even seeing the top of some of these mountains! Like, how stupid can you be?!

The tour guide told us that depending on the conditions, we may be able to get right out to the Tasman Sea to check out the Southern Fur Seal Colony. But they said they haven't had much chance to do that lately because the water's been pretty rough.

So we cruised around in Doubtful Sound, as well as touched into a few other sounds and arms of the water. It turns out that Doubtful Sound isn't really a sound, but a fiord - just like Milford Sound. In fact, there is only one true "sound" in all of New Zealand...the difference between a fiord and a sound is that fiords are developed by glacial movement and melting...carving out huge mountains with steep drops straight into the water...the top bit of water is fresh water from rain and runoff, while the rest of the water below is sea water - salty.

As we were heading out of Doubtful towards the sea, the tour guide announced that the water was good enough to go out and see the fur seal colony. But they said that the water will get quite rocky and if you're not steady on your feet, you might want to sit down, and he particuarly asked people not to go on the bow of the boat. This is when I was like "WHAT?! We can go on the BOW and I didn't know it?!"

Anyways...I stood up top by myself while everyone was safe and snug inside the aquarium downstairs...I held onto the railing as the boat rocked more violently (but really not that violent...it would have knocked me over had I not been paying attention but it wasn't so bad). A few times I also had an old school moment and did some good old fashioned "bus surfing" but on the top of the boat...you students know what I'm talking about but for those who don't know what it is...it's like when you're on a city bus or whatever, you stand in the aisle and pretend to surf and keep your balance without holding onto anything. It's quite hard.

Well on a giant cruise ship that is rocking back and forth, side and side, it's actually quite a bit harder coz you're leaning pretty far trying not to fall over!

Anyways, I better move on here coz I'm taking much longer to write this than I had hoped.

We got out to the Tasman, and the tour guide told everyone that "You may not know this, but if you keep following this direction we're going right now, you'll get to New Zealand's western island...some of you may have heard of it; it's more commonly known as Australia." and I think I was the only person who laughed heartily - probably because I was one of the only Kiwi's on board...and by that I mean that I've lived here long enough to appreciate the Aussie jokes.

So we drove out to the colony, and the seals looked like lumps of dirt on the rocks until we got significantly closer - then you could sort of make out that they were seals, but we couldn't get very close...but I have some pictures where if you look really hard you can see them.

Then we turned around and went back towards Deep Cove, but we took a few small detours along the way.